Thursday, August 27, 2015

Holy, Holy, Holy

Why are we afraid and despise as trivial to sing of our native landscapes, mountains, rivers, and valleys, yes, even to mention their names except in poetical images? Because all these things, which, as being Nature, have been regarded as works of the devil for a thousand years, have never truly been reconsecrated. But here gods and demigods wedded with every white mountain-peak, every vale and valley, every tree and shrub, every river and spring, have made everything holy. Holy was all that is above and on and in the earth. And round about her the sea was likewise holy. And so complete was this hallowing, that the lateborn, millennia too late, the barbarian still today — and even in a railway coach — is permeated in profoundest wise therewith.

You must look for trees where trees grow; for gods not in a godless land, on godless ground. Here gods and heroes are products of the soil.